The ocean was so much colder during Flood. Even on the hottest days, the sun’s warming rays could only pierce so far beneath the surface. That left many comfortable havens and hunting grounds all but uninhabitable until time returned things to the way they were before.

Coyrifan was obliged to spend the best part of his waking hours curled up in his hollow, if he wanted to be somewhere that was both safe and warm. Alas, that was never an option for any prolonged length of time during the merlings’ season of impunity, when they were free to hunt and explore uninhibited by Dry-time land barriers and the basking predators that lurked in the former shallows.

On the other side of the soft coral divider, his father was swishing in repeated circles around the dwelling, as he had for quite a while at that point. If Coy were to be frank, it was getting a bit off-putting.

“Abenfor should be close enough now. I’m off to fetch Meeoa and then speak with him,” Fair finally announced, and went out through the beaded shell curtain without allowing even a moment for his son to wish him well.

Coy took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, gradually unfurling from the tight ball he’d been curled into and carefully unwrapping his tail fins from around his body. The fins weren’t exactly delicate, but any accidental tear could interfere enough to throw off precise movements. Taking a dab of thick oil from the large stone crock in the main living area of the dwelling, he rubbed it into a few patches on his fins and tail that felt a little parched.

That done, he went back to his hollow and lay across it on his back, head and shoulders poking through the pliable divider so he could watch the entrance for his mother, who could return from foraging on a moment’s notice. The fact that his view was inverted made the task only slightly more entertaining.

Now that he was alone in the silent dwelling with nothing to distract him, the sense of loneliness seemed to cave in on him. He reached out with his mind, taking great care to control the severity of what he felt so that it wouldn’t taint his invitation. “Imyra, darling, how are you faring?”

Instantly, a warmth as if from the sun bubbled up around Coyrifan, and he could almost see the little heartbeast there before him, her pale body flashing with bursts of yellow and green as she zipped around and around with excitement that she couldn’t control. Her overwhelming joy in pouring out her numerous thoughts and recent memories on him made him laugh.

She was well and very happy, though she longed to be near her beloved Coy. There was always company, and the land-dwellers were always so kind. Her favorite was the soft one, who reminded her of a younger, darker Vasadax. He’d spent his two visits thus far playing with her, and today, he brought delicious salty morsels from the sea that couldn’t be hunted in her new landlocked haunt.

Imyra also couldn’t help but favor the adolescent female, moody and distractible as she was. It had been an exciting discovery to find that there was someone else whose thoughts she was able to play in as well as her beloved’s, and the fact that she could play with them both at the same time and wallow in their wonder and delight was just so much fun!

Coyrifan abruptly sat up, and the question was not even fully formed in his mind before Imyra was already affirming what he’d hoped to hear. Yes, the female was there. In fact, Imyra had already been trying for hours to entice her to come near, but she’d remained on land, watching from a distance with the tallest and the smallest of her four-shoreling clan. Only the soft one had come into the water.

The little animal didn’t know enough to accuse Erin of any impolite behavior, and instead Imyra’s thoughts became small and shy as she wondered if perhaps she’d been naughty somehow, and wouldn’t be allowed to play until she made up for her mistake.

“Of course not, darling,” Coyrifan drawled, his words a gentle stroke of comfort. “I suspect that she needs to keep your wonderful discovery a secret for now. The other shorelings were rather skeptical of our intent, if you’ll remember.”

What?

Imyra just couldn’t believe that someone wouldn’t trust her! Why wouldn’t they?

Her thoughts were wriggling so frantically with innocent confusion that they were beginning to spasm and coil as tightly as her physical body likely was at this point.

You’re squeezing my arm, came the faint impression of a voice, translated into feelings rather than words by Imyra’s childlike mind. Coyrifan laughed again. That would be Arlis, who certainly had to be her favored “soft one.”

“Calm, precious. They’ll trust you for sure, once they’ve gotten to know you better.”

Too pure to be skeptical about anything, Imyra immediately believed him, the wave of her relief pouring over Coyrifan through their bond. He sighed and relaxed into a drowse for a few moments before shaking his head and laughing at himself. The merling might be able to control what emotions Imyra received from him, but she had no capability to reciprocate. It was up to Coy to train himself well enough to be the filter for them both.

Imyra became excited again as a familiar presence came near. Coyrifan recognized Erin immediately, but held his peace for the moment. She was concerned, questioning Arlis about Imyra’s unusual behavior. Arlis didn’t know what caused the distress. Ultimately, they agreed that the little heartbeast just needed some quiet time without the excitement of food or overstimulating play.

Coyrifan’s hopes rose as Arlis’ presence retreated and the girl’s stayed nearby. As soon as they were alone, Imyra began entreating Erin to speak, flailing her fins and repeatedly splashing at the girl with her tail. Unfortunately, the attempt was having the opposite effect, sending Erin further away to avoid being soaked.

No, that wasn’t it. Erin was moving away, but away from the shore where her companions kept watch. She invited Imyra to follow with a brief word or two, leading the infant guardian around the perimeter of the pond. Once they were far enough from the hearing of the other shorelings, the girl took out her moonstone.

Immediately, it was as if Erin was there in the dwelling, so real and so near that Coyrifan’s hand would touch her if he reached out. He very nearly did so, until his sight came back into focus and he could see quite clearly that he was alone in his hollow, just as before. Still, she was there. If he concentrated hard enough, he could actually see her through Imyra’s eyes.

She was deeply riveted on her moonstone, lip winsomely pouting as she waited for something to happen.

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Stifling the laugh that bubbled up at the sight, Coy drifted backward a ways and came to settle in the dished floor of his hollow. He considered a few moments more before giving in to the terribly impish urge to goad Imyra into blasting off a piercing whistle.

It had the effect he’d hoped for, making Erin jump so high that she almost cleared the surface of the waist-deep water. When she’d recovered, she glared her displeasure at Imyra, and with him watching through the beast as he was, it was exactly as if she’d turned the look directly on Coyrifan himself. This time, he did laugh.

When Erin heard his voice coming from her moonstone, she quickly understood what had happened, and a fetching mixture of joy and consternation washed over her face. She turned away from Imyra and waved at someone back on shore. “She’s fine,” Erin called. “I think she saw a bird fly over.”

With that, she continued her walk with Imyra, lifting the moonstone to her face when she felt it was safe enough to do so.

“That was really rude, fish-face,” she huffed. “And stupid. They’re watching me even closer now.”

“I understand, finless clod,” Coyrifan said, his broad smile seeping into his tone.

Erin exhaled loudly and covered her face with one hand. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again.”

Even as she said it, Coyrifan correctly guessed that her irritated act was just that. “I’m pleased to hear from you again so soon. I was worried that you’d be kept away.”

“No such luck. I have to come here three times every week. I thought it would be boring, but maybe not, now that we can talk,” she admitted, her voice softening.

“It would be so much more fun if the others could come and chat too, don’t you think?”

“Are you kidding? If they find out about us, they’ll confiscate my necklace. Then what?”

“Let’s not include them, then.” He grinned slyly and rested his chin on one hand. “Truthfully, I would much prefer to keep you all to myself.”

“You can stop flirting now. I’m well aware that this—whatever it is that we’re supposed to be—it’s not real.”

“Oh, I can assure you, it’s quite real,” Coyrifan said with airy humor. “It just isn’t what you think it is.”

“Uh huh. You still owe me the rest of the story about that.”

“Ah, yes, we were so regrettably interrupted the last time we spoke. Where were we, then?”

“You were just about to tell me about the Howlers.”

“The Howliths, yes. The other hunters, my father, and I had passed the boiling jets, and were just about to cross into the wastes…”

COYRIFAN

A little less than three months ago…

“I hate this next stretch.” Vasadax aired his sullen thoughts in the open, raising a few chuckles from the other hunters. They were all in agreement about the wastes where the Howlers lay, save for Coy’s father Fair, who appeared as unperturbed as could be.

The “wastes” did not appear as such upon first glance. They were actually quite lively, in a sense. Broad ribbons of green and brown kelp undulated in the gentle ocean breeze, forming a vast underwater border that went on as far to the sides as the eye could see, all of it constantly in motion.

As they reached the edges of it, Coyrifan’s eyes naturally dropped to search the kelp for movements other than those caused by the ebb and flow of the water. There were no dangerous predators there, but neither did any prey thrive in this place where their enemies never showed their faces.

Coy had long enough to think on those facts for only a brief time before the heaviness set in, pulling him toward the ocean floor. All of the merlings, as well as their hunting animals, instinctively began to climb toward the surface as they swam on, but it did them no good. It was impossible to rise out of reach of the silent, invisible tendrils of dread that threaded up from the depths and curled in creeping vines about their minds and bodies.

That was the effect of the Howlers, and it would only get worse as they got closer.

Little was known about those evil Stones, save that they had fallen from above long ago with such force that their impacts formed deep craters in the ocean floor, and that their arrival had effectively cut short a savage bloodfeud between the Mivusa and Yasango tribes by forming an impassable barrier between their territories. In the years after the breaking of Crylis, when the duality of Flood and Dry began, the stones slowly shifted with movements of the water, eventually allowing narrow passages of escape, and the feuding to begin again.

When Coy was barely old enough to swim by himself, a way was found for some of the Howlers to be moved from their craters and carried to new locations, forming the chain-like barrier around the foot of the island that now protected the home of Mivusa tribe.

“A little closer,” Fair said, his voice faint with the same growing fear that grasped all of them.

By now, the fingerling Imyra was crushed as deeply inside of her spiral shell as she could get. Coy had done his best to shield her from the worst of the nearest Howler’s attacks, but it became harder and harder as his own defenses were breached further and further with every second they remained above the wastes.

“Coy, I’m losing it.” Cupping the side of his head in one thick hand, Vasadax sounded eerily distant. He was beginning to slow, sinking toward the kelp forest below. Strange, how the ends of the waving fronds suddenly resembled gaping maws, hungry for merling flesh.

Coyrifan swam toward him, trying to ignore the sickening sensation that every stroke of his tail was sending him farther away, rather than closer to his friend. It wasn’t real. None of it was real, and certainly not the utter lack of feeling beneath his palm when Coy took hold of Vasa’s shoulder. He couldn’t perceive the touch himself, but hopefully his friend could.

Just in time, Fair drew up and paused, looking off toward a bare patch in the field below. The Howlith in its center looked utterly unassuming, just a round boulder of what appeared to be rough natural stone, save for the single violet dot in the middle of its face like an eye to seek its next victim.

The patch below began to ripple and fold in on itself, sinking into a thundering black void that swallowed the water and was quickly extending its reach far enough to suck Coyrifan in. With a desperate effort to separate himself from the illusion, he tore his eyes away and watched as his father lifted the moonstone gem from his chest and faced it toward the Stone.

“SILENCE!” Fair shouted.

Instantly, the void closed with a boom and Coyrifan felt the warmth of Vasadax’s shoulder flush into existence against his hand. The entire hunting party shuddered with relief as the terrifying visions and sensations all but vanished. Whispers of impending death still caressed Coy’s awareness, but it was as if they were calling to him from a distance, allowed to come no further.

Yes, the Mivusa tribe was safe from the world around them… but this was the price of that safety. Fair’s precious moonstone was only way they could get in or out.

It didn’t matter how well aware one was that the Howlers’ attacks were merely an illusion, so like the merlings’ own powers but many, many times stronger. Eventually, every mind would break, and the illusions of abject terror would seem real and certain to anyone experiencing them. Ultimately, it would drive any merling mad with fear if they were forced to suffer too long.

Evidence of that truth was left on permanent display in this Stone’s clearing, and others.

Coyrifan usually averted his eyes from the ocean floor once the Howlers were silenced, but with his dear Imyra to consider now, he forced himself to consider the significance of the destruction that had been wrought to create those hideous displays.

Using heavy chains pulled from the shattered vessels of manling sailors, Fair had punished many of his merling enemies by imprisoning them within the circular clearings around the Howlers. One most unfortunate male that he’d especially despised had been restrained two chains: A short chain on his wrist and a longer one about his neck. In his all-consuming terror, he’d gnawed his own hand off, only to snap his neck moments later as he tried to flee and abruptly reached the limit of the longer chain.

Every single one of them had died, the yellowed bones of the oldest victims still contorted in agony. There were some down there that were far more recent, and the sight of them was so horrific that Coyrifan couldn’t even bear to look at them.

This was the legacy of Chief Ferrifan Ere Alten Mivusa, the savior of the Mivusa tribe.

This was the truth that Coyrifan had to face. The risk he was taking to save himself and Imyra from the same barbaric fate as their parents. Love and compassion had no place in the world of a Turned guardian and its bonded partner.

Contrary to his name, Fair had been forced to become anything but.